Aug 14, 2016

I recently gave a talk to our interns and co-ops, and I was pleasantly surprised by the questions they asked about my career growth and the advice they sought. During one of the questions, I shared my perspective about how to get noticed early in your career. Afterwards, I realized that this is the same pattern that I’ve seen with our most highly prolific and transformational software engineers— the 10x engineers. These are the best software engineers in any organization— the “difference makers” on any project. They solve the hardest problems, and blaze a trail for others to follow. They don’t have direct reports— but somehow they are the thought leaders that the team seeks out. They are prolific with their code, and they find ways to make the team better.

Throughout my career, I’ve led some very large Engineering teams, and I’ve found ways to stay close to the top engineers in my teams. I have watched the ways these top engineers worked, and I found that the top 1% can be ten times more productive than the average engineer. Three engineers, in particular, exemplify these traits: Jeff Brewer, Jim Showalter, and Joe Wells.

These 10x engineers excel in three dimensions:

Effort

Effectiveness

Influence

Effort

Let’s face it, all of us have meetings in a given week. These meetings take away from “keyboard time” to crank out code. The best engineers will find more hours in a day and week to write code— and they will work more hours than the average engineer.

For illustration, let’s assume that the average engineer has 10 hours of meetings in a 40-hour week, which leaves only 30 hours for writing code. When you work more hours, the weekly overhead of 10 hours remains the same, but you’ve just created more time for cranking out code. A 50-hour work week provides 40 hours of coding time (33% more than average). A 60-hour week provides 50 coding hours (66% more than average). A 70-hour week provides 60 coding hours, which is double the average. Jeff, Jim, and Joe are some of the hardest working engineers I’ve seen, and they are committing code at all hours of the day and night.

Effectiveness

Writing new code is only part of the software life cycle. Getting your code ready for production and fixing bugs after production eats into the time you have for writing new code. The best engineers create fewer bugs and spend less time debugging their code, which gives them more time to tackle new initiatives. While their teammates are fixing their bugs, they’re working on stories from the next sprint or finding creative solutions to problems that they see coming down the road. They are also very conscious of their time and they manage their time wisely— so that they can carve out more hours for coding. They attend only those meetings where they feel like they are needed and are adding value. They rearrange their calendar so that they have large, consecutive blocks of uninterrupted coding time. Jim teaches other engineers about his approach to time management and how he stays “in flow.” When Jim is “in flow,” he is prolific, and his code is high-quality, tested, durable— and it just works!

Influence

These 10x engineers don’t isolate themselves in a cave. I’ve found these engineers to be at the center of their project teams, no matter how large the team. They actively influence the broader team, and they are sought out by others on the team for advice or help. And boy, are these top engineers vocal! You will find them sharing their opinions on team e-mail aliases and in meetings. They interactive proactively with execs and constructively share their ideas. All of this passion and energy comes from a place of not accepting the status quo so that the team can do great things.

Joe led our largest Engineering initiative—the transformation of the QuickBooks Online (QBO) user interface and tech stack, which resulted in QBO Harmony. Jeff invented the QBO plug-in framework, which allows us to rethink how other applications from Intuit and third-party developers can integrate seamlessly into QBO. Both of these initiatives evolved from their early prototypes and experiments into game-changing technologies. Along the way, they evangelized their work and got “buy in” from other engineers and execs— and they changed the way teams work.

Conclusion

The top engineers are two to four times better than the average engineer in each dimension, and as a result, can achieve 6-10x the output of the average engineer. I’ve also found that these top engineers identify and mentor the engineers they see exhibiting these traits.

Staying close to these top engineers has provided many benefits. I got insight into the inner workings of the broader Engineering team. These engineers were also able to drive change at scale, since they have such amazing “tech cred” with the broader team. Working together, we have achieved amazing outcomes for the business.

Jul 12, 2016

When operating a business, it’s easy to get absorbed into daily
routines, and forget to take a step back and ask, “Is there a better way?” One
of the biggest takeaways I can share from my startup experience is to encourage
entrepreneurs to explore and discover new technologies that can improve how you
operate your business.

With technology changing by the minute and its options seeming
endless, business solutions may appear out of reach, too expensive or
completely overwhelming to think about. There are, however, free or low-cost
alternatives to help your business run efficiently. A recent article in Entrepreneur Magazine discusses how apps and the Cloud provide entrepreneurs a better way to run their small
business. Entrepreneurs
running their business on the cloud not only benefit from the mobility factor,
but also benefit from the many options to integrate new tools that help improve
business productivity, operations, and even access to credit.

Let’s take for exampleTheresa Lee, the
founder of Future Glory. Theresa
handcrafts socially conscious goods, and she relies on QuickBooks integrations
with Shopify and PayPal so she can focus on design, and not numbers. She uses
the Shopify for QuickBooks app, which automatically syncs all of her Shopify
e-commerce data, sales transactions, and PayPal payments to QuickBooks, giving
her back time to focus on creating amazing accessories. Other customers who
don't have an online store use the Sync with PayPal app to seamlessly import
sales (including line items, fees and taxes), as well as customer information
into QuickBooks. By using apps, Theresa manages all the day-to-day
bookkeeping herself, spending less than 20 minutes a day on tasks such as
invoicing and tracking vendor payments.

As the guy on the hair club commercials used to say,
"I'm not just the owner, I'm also a customer." Before my startup was
acquired by Intuit in 2009, I used QuickBooks to track my team's budget and
expenses and an app from Bill.com to manage and approve purchase orders and
bills. I didn't know accounting, but I was actually managing my accounts
payable workflow. Imagine that! Bill.com continues to be a popular app that
helps accountants and small businesses save time paying their vendors.

The first step to figuring out a solution is to not overthink the
problem. Start by identifying software that solves a critical business need and
will grow with you as your business grows. As detailed in both my personal
example and that of Theresa, the apps that work the best are the ones that
fully integrate with the software you use to manage and run your business. It’s
a unified approach to business – the apps work together while the data flows
into and out of your business software. That’s the best kind of integration!

Increased efficiency trickles into other areas for a business owner,
such as mobility. Most software platforms and apps on the cloud have mobile
solutions that untie a business owner from their desk and provide access to the
same data from a web browser or mobile phone. Even on the go, owners can check
inventory, access employee schedules, pull an expense or streamline a payment
at any time.

Furthermore, apps can also become a resource for the business by providing
funding options. Take Carol
Highsmith, for example. Carol, a photographer for the Library of Congress, refined
her business so she can focus on her craft of capturing a lasting photographic legacy for
generations of Americans. As a self-employed photographer who lives on
the road, she cannot spend her days slaving over the books, managing expenses,
collating receipts, chasing up payments and stressing over cash flow. Thankfully,
she uses QuickBooks Online and Fundbox – a tool that offers small businesses an
easy way to advance their outstanding invoices for access to working capital.Carol leans on Fundbox to ease her
worries during those highly stressful waits for clients to process payments.
Carol says: “I can advance the money for a pending invoice and say ‘this is how
I’m going to pay it back.' The money hits my account immediately, and I can
check on the repayment status at any time. That's huge."

I encourage small business owners to make
the time, take a step back and embrace new technologies or apps available to
launch, grow and operate your business. Look for apps that solve your problems
and can help you grow your business – and that seamlessly connect to your
existing software solutions. And the best part about this all is that you don’t have
to go far to find these solutions! If you are a QuickBooks customer, you can visit the QuickBooks App Store to find apps and try
them out with your business. And if you're unsure, you can always ask your
accountant for guidance.

We will continue this conversation in the fall, when Intuit QuickBooks will host a panel discussion as part of the Small Business Administration’s Small Business Technology Coalition on the use of apps by small businesses. We will provide entrepreneurs with an opportunity to hear directly from other small business owners who are using apps and how they have transformed the way they run their businesses. Small businesses will also have an opportunity to connect with developers who are continuously innovating with small businesses in mind. Stay tuned for more updates on the event shortly.

In the meantime, I’d be interested in hearing from you about your experiences in using apps to run your business. What’s working? What’s not working? Which ones do you love? How do you hear about the best apps?

About Me

Vinay Pai is an experienced technology executive with a track record of leading global high-performing organizations, driving business growth globally, and driving technology transformation at scale. As the Vice President for Intuit Developer Platform, Vinay leads the platform strategy and business segment chartered to grow the Intuit ecosystem through a vibrant community of third-party applications and developers. Over the past seven years at Intuit, Vinay has held a variety of leadership roles at Intuit. As VP of Engineering, Vinay launched a new offering for accountants, scaled QuickBooks globally, and transformed the tech stack. Vinay has also led the Engineering teams for Intuit Online Payroll and QuickBooks Online, where he introduced high availability, disaster recovery and launched new global offerings. Vinay joined Intuit in 2009 as part of the PayCycle acquisition. Vinay also has held leadership roles in a cloud startup, Sun Microsystems, and Schlumberger. At Sun, Vinay helped develop Java Enterprise Edition and Web Services. Early in his career, Vinay also founded a three-person startup on the Apple platform that delivered three products.